Louisiana Outlaws Cash For Trading Used Goods More Than Once A Month

In order to combat the rising threat of metal theft, Louisiana passed a law that prohibits anyone who trades used property more than once a month from conducting that transaction in cash. This should cut down on metal vultures stripping down the infrastructure to turn it into money for their drug habit. However, this also means you can’t really hold a garage sale more than once every 30 days without some burdensome restrictions.

The law excludes non-profits and pawn shops. But flea markets, trading posts, and even the mom who wants to have more than one garage sale a month are caught up in the crossfire too. The new law will now require them to keep detailed records of every transaction, only accept personal check, money order, or electronic transfer, and log their customers’ ID’s.

“The government is placing a significant restriction on individuals transacting in their own private property,” local lawyer Thad D. Ackel, Jr. Esq told KLFY. “Lawmakers in Louisiana have effectively banned its citizens from freely using United States legal tender,” he added in an online article.

Pawnshops have had to keep detailed records for a long time, but under the new law they will still be allowed to transact in cash.

I would have expected this from the party who says things like, â€œIf you love me, youâ€™ve got to help me pass this billâ€ & â€œBut we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in itâ€.

But apparently, the Louisiana legislature is full of a bunch of Rinos.

Really? I think youâ€™re getting a little loose with your accusation of trolling. I never realized that itâ€™s considered trolling to point out that Râ€™s think Dâ€™s do everything wrong and Dâ€™s think Râ€™s do everything wrong.

No, I live in Lafayette, where KLFY is based and trust me there are no RINO’s in this legislature. At least not in the way Grover Nordquest or the Tea Party defines RINO. These people are all dyed in the wool “Republikans” who would rather cut off their arm than support anything remotely progressive, lest it come back to haunt them on election day.

What happened here was a key Republican constituency, Builders, of which I am one (builder, not a member of the GOP) have had problems with copper theft at job sites. In one instance the site that was vandalized belonged to a scrap metal dealer who, in a twisted bit of fate, bought back his own wiring from the thieves. So the idiots in the State Legislature passed this misguided law in response. Typical of Louisiana politics regardless of who holds the strings.

Yes, a law that sort of addresses the problem, but then is written so broadly and lazily that it catches all sorts of people not intended to be caught by it. They clearly tried to define all the possible variations of a scrap dealer, but went about it in a phenomenally stupid way: “every individual, firm, corporation, entity or partnership … including junk shops, junk yards, auto wreckers, scrap metal dealers….”

If the clause starts with “everyone”, there’s no real point of listing out specific groups included in “everyone” now is there?

It also probably won’t address the problem, because some enterprising middleman could and probably will offer the junkies 50 cents on the dollar (multiple transactions? what do you mean? I just found this stuff in the street….), and then sell a few truckloads to the scrapyard all at once each month.

Exactly, we all get what they were trying to do… but it was executed so poorly (as is typical of most government now days).

Pawn shop laws work quite well for tracking down stolen property (pawn shops must keep a detailed record on who sold them the item)… why not just extend that to any facility that “buys or trades used metals”? Those five words would collect all of the scrap dealers but exclude steel plants and garage sales.

Now, here’s my first thought on how to kill this: Someone from Arkansas, Mississippi or Texas and who lives near the state line goes to a garage sale, scrapyard, or whatever on the other side of the state line in Louisiana and performs some sort of used goods transaction. The used goods were either brought over the state line to sell, or are brought over it in the other direction after the sale. Now it’s interstate commerce and you can get the feds involved.

The Interstate Commerce clause has been invoked in the past on far flimsier grounds than that.

In my city you can only have two garage sales a year and they can’t last more than three days. Mine last weekend only lasted one day. All I got was old people with handfuls of change. Guess everyone is tapped out!

Say that you plan on having a garage sale because you’re moving soon. You have it for one weekend, but you still have a lot of stuff left over that you could sell. Why not have another garage sale, or maybe two, to get as much money out of your stuff as you can before trashing/donating it?

In most cases, the tax deduction is worth more than the actual cash value you could get for the item at a garage sale.

We just moved and had a 1 day garage sale. We sold a significant portion of the stuff we did not want (bringing in a couple thousand dollars), and priced the things to move. Whatever was left over we put at the curb with a free sign on it or donated to charity.

That’s true if you already itemize your taxes for a larger deduction (eg, mortgages, healthcare costs > 7.5% of income). If, like the majority of Americans, you take the standard deduction, you’re better off selling the stuff on eBay.

There was, for a while, a growing market of people buying unclaimed storage unit contents and then selling them at their private yard sales. I have a perpetual yard sale next to me, and I have to say it looks bad.

I heard now that “everybody” is buying storage units, they aren’t as cheap so there are fewer of these constant yard & garage sales.

Atleast the crew in Washington has some sort of talking points handed to them that are “perfected” by special interest groups lol. This just looks like they didn’t even know what they were voting for. Just sounded good at the time. Who voted nay? Because he/she deserves a pat on the back and another term

You’ve clearly never paid attention to Louisiana politics. This qualifies as a high-brow, well-designed bill compared to some of the hijinks I saw while living in New Orleans. While I was there, David Duke (of the KKK) made it to the runoff in the gubernatorial election. His opponent was Edwin Edwards, who had been tried for corruption during a prior term and served prison time after his election in question. All over the state people had bumper stickers that said “Vote for the crook! It’s important!” Edwards won handily.

I remember when Nagin proposed his solution for the homeless problem in New Orleans in a public speech; that solution was to buy all the homeless people a one-way bus ticket out of town. Yep, New Orleans politics are interesting, to say the least.

I know. In the few weeks prior to a move a few months ago I was a Craiglist PIMP! The neighbors probably would have thought I selling drugs if people hadn’t all been arriving empty handed and leaving with couches, coffee tables, dishes, paintings and special edition never-been-opened Monopoly games.

People who sell stolen goods are already working outside any area that would create paper trails. And since pawn shops are excluded, this still doesn’t stop people from selling stolen property to pawn shops that turn a blind eye to the source.

Pawn shops here are regulated and are required to gather all of the sellers pertinent information. Scrap metal dealers, on the other hand, could simply weigh the metals, calculate the value, and hand over the cash. No ID needed. A better law would have been to require the scrap metal dealers to gather the same information that pawn shops are required to and leave it at that.

There is a whole underground economy out there based on cash-only transactions that avoids taxation at any level. Perhaps the State of Louisiana is onto something besides just to “combat the rising threat of metal theft”.

For all you, “rabble-rabble-big-government-rabble”, How would you suggest curbing the theft of metal (AC units, copper pipes from construction sites, ENTIRE BRIDGES, etc)?
Scrap yards fulfill a need we have to recycle no-longer-necessary materials; they just need to be prevented from continuing to accept stolen goods.

I don’t have an answer on how to fix the problem. They’re the politicians and lawyers. Find a way to combat the problem without unduly infringing on the rights of lawful citizens. It’s what they’re there for.

Ends don’t justify means, especially when the means seem stupid at least and unconstitutional at best.

How about they just require scrap metal dealers to copy your ID like they do for pawn shops? I had copper stolen from a house under construction, the sheriff came out an took a report and said that’s about all they could do, can’t get finger prints off of lumber. I asked him about visiting scrap metal yards, his comment was that they weren’t required to keep records of who they bought from so it was useless. They later caught some people who had gone into a house that was completely finished because they left prints on the cabinets and counter tops.

There is a house in my town that has a yard sale every weekend Its basically a flea market in his driveway. Looks like he buys clearanced stuff in bulk and tries to make a profit. He lives on the county line so the law the city has for yard sales doesn’t apply to him.

However, if you are in need of quick cash for your daily drug habit, you might not have the ability to wait 30 days or more to sell your stolen metal. And, if you are homeless, where do you store your 30 day haul? And, if you have that much metal, how do you transport it? Maybe you steal a truck once month….

I scrap metal about once a month. I noticed a sign on the door recently that stated “walk-in” recyclers could only sell aluminum cans and cardboard. All other metal types had to be delivered in a vehicle. My recycler tracks sales by license plate number, type and weight of metals sold, and requires ID for sales over $25 in one transaction. Don’t know if there is a law requiring it, but I suspect they don’t want to be stuck returning metals that were stolen that they paid for in cash.

Shouldn’t the title be “Louisana Outlaws Trading Used Goods For Cash More Than Once A Month?” The way it is already sounds like they banned buying used things instead of what they’re actually trying to do.

Er…why not just reform the system used by metal dealers/buyers. Pawn shops are subject to strict rules about stuff they buy, and have to work with police, looking for stolen goods, etc. Why not force metal buyers/recycling centers to do the same, rather than putting the burden on the other 99.999% of the population?

sounds illegal. cash actually says something about being legal tender for all debts public or private. it says “all” not “just once a month for used goods”. (im just guessing at what it says, im way to poor to actually have any cash”

Pawn Shops in many states are required to get fingerprints, drivers license numbers, and other identification when someone pawns an item.

Why aren’t scrap metal dealers required to do the same? Thieves are stealing valuable bronze artworks, wiring, plumbing, and other metal items (even a bridge), then selling them to a scrap metal dealer.

So can they only make 1 cash transaction at their yardsale. Do you have to shut down your yardsale after your first cash transaction if you don’t want the hassle of checks. Or do you have to plan all of your cash transactions for the month on one day?

Well, hurray for one thing – the city I used to live in finally passed an ordinance that allowed no more than 2 days of garage sales per year for a house. (That meant, Friday and Saturday = 2 garage sales.)

I can’t find anything in the text of the bill that would exempt non-profits, only “municipalities, political subdivisions, and utility companies”. This bill would also shut out Goodwill and Salvation Army stores, as well as used book & record stores. It would even prevent school bookstores from selling used textbooks for cash.

HOWEVER, as I read the bill, it doesn’t impact yard sales at all, since it only applies to those “engaged in the business of purchasing and reselling any of the materials provided for in this Part located either at a permanently established place of business or in connection with a business of an itinerant nature, including junk shops, junk yards, junk stores, auto
wreckers, scrap metal dealers or processors, salvage yards, collectors of or dealers in junk or secondhand property, and junk trucks”.

Typical ploy using the fear of the month to curtail more freedom and squeeze more tax revenue out of regular folks.

Politicians. If they’re not legislating for corporations they’re legislating how to get more tax money out of regular people. Politicians everywhere pretty much no longer speak for, represent or give a crap about the people.

Something tells me this won’t stand Constitutional review. While the State can certainly curtail certain types of transactions when the substances themselves are outlawed, telling me I can’t sell used (legal) merchandise and conduct the transactions the way I see fit is going to get a big “Fuck you, I’mma do it anyway, and all y’all bitches can go to hell.” Louisiana is clearly overstepping it’s bounds here, and deserves all the middle fingers one can possibly give it.

Before this was an issue, lots of cities and municpilaties outlawed garage sales more than once a month. It kept jerkwads from running a weekend business from their home without the proper paperwork. Want to sell junk every weekend? Then drive your but down to the flea market and buy a $20 space. Just keep it and your traffic out of my neighborhood. Etc.

Growing up in the early 80s someone in the neighborhood did this. She would hit garage sales looking for stuff while her daughter stayed at home & ran a weekly garage sale out of her house. Went on for a good year with polite letters from the city asking her to stop. Neighbors got upset enough about losing their weekend quiet that they contacted the state about a business being ran from the woman’s house. It was only then that she was forced to quit her business or face jail for not filing state tax paperwork.

PUHLEEZE! This has nothing to do with drug users. It has to do with asserting control over something that doesn’t need controlling. I have watched many City Council meetings where similar laws have been passed. Almost always when the one member will say “that’s not the intent of the law”. I have frequently put forth “then put the intent of the law IN the law so there is no question about how it will be enforced.” The reply is always to the effect “we need to control this problem and this is the best way to do it.”
Well, it’s never the best way and and it’s always about control for the sake of control. Control of something, anything. It’s about control.
It happens at all levels of government, city, county, state, federal, just like taxes.